On 8 October 2024, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) reached a last-minute settlement with Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) to avoid another bruising legal battle over the agency’s corruption probe into the controversial Kazakh mining company. While the full terms of the agreement have not been disclosed, the deal draws a line under claims the SFO leaked confidential information to the media about its investigation.
The SFO has been locked in litigation for years after the multibillion-dollar mining business took aim at the agency, its officers, and journalists who looked into their controversial operations. Founded by the so-called ‘trio’ of ex-Soviet oligarchs in 1994 and now reportedly funded by sanctioned Russian banks, ENRC and its associates were suspected of paying bribes to secure lucrative mining deals in the Democratic Republic of Congo while it was a London-listed company.
But the SFO suffered a major setback last year when the High Court ruled the agency opened its criminal investigation in 2013 after inducing ENRC’s lawyer to share damaging information he was not authorised to disclose. Shortly afterwards the SFO dropped its decade-long investigation, saying it had “insufficient admissible evidence to prosecute” ENRC.
Concerns have been raised that ENRC’s aggressive and well-funded legal tactics have had a chilling effect on the SFO and other law enforcement agencies tasked with pursuing multinational companies and deep-pocketed suspects. While the SFO has been put on the defensive in successive lawsuits and accused of “misfeasance in public office”, ENRC has never had to answer the corruption allegations against it in a court.
The deal signed off by the High Court contains a confidential schedule with the settlement agreement, meaning that its terms are not public. While the SFO will no doubt be relieved to see the back of this litigation, the lack of transparency about the deal is deeply troubling given the public interest in scrutinising one of the SFO’s longest-running and most controversial cases.
Dr Helen Taylor, Senior Legal Researcher at Spotlight on Corruption, said:
“This settlement draws a line under a bruising legal battle for the SFO, but it comes after years of aggressive litigation by ENRC that has diverted scarce resources and depleted staff morale at the agency. It’s absolutely essential that there is transparency about the terms of this deal so the public can have confidence that our taxpayer-funded anti-corruption agency has acted in the public interest rather than feeling backed into a corner by a powerful multinational.”
